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Modern Engineering. 

McALPINE. 

ffste 



<s° 




MODERN ENGINEERING. 



A LECTURE, 
DELIVERED ON THE 10th OF FEBRUARY, 1869. 

BEING ONE OF A SERIES OP TWELVE LECTURES, 

ON SCIENTIFIC SUBJECTS, 
AT THE REQUEST OF 

THE AMERICAN INSTITUTE, 

BY 

Hon, WILLIAM J. McALPINE, 

PRESIDENT OF THE SOCIETY OF CIVIL ENGINEERS ; FORMER STATE 

ENGINEER OF NEW YORK ; MEMBER OF THE INSTITUTIONS 

OF CIVIL ENGINEERS OF GREAT BRITAIN, FRANCE, AND 

AUSTRIA ; MEMBER OF THE AMERICAN AND FRANKLIN 

INSTITUTES; HONORARY MEMBER OF THE CHAMBER 

OF COMMERCE OF NEW YORK, AND OF VARIOUS 

OTHER SCIENTIFIC SOCIETIES. 



ji,e- 



ALBANY: 

VAN BENTHUYSEN STEAM PRINTING HOUSE. 
1874. 



Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1874, 

By WILLIAM J. McALPINE, 

In the office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington, I). C. 









^ 



To John B. Jervis, Esq., 

Honorary Member of the Society of Civil Engineers, etc., etc. : 

Dear /Sir — I was appointed, by you, a rodman on the Carbondale Railway, 
just fifty years ago, and continued to serve under you for sixteen years. 

Your exceeding 1 kindness, and the invaluable instructions which you gave 
me in my profession, necessarily secured my warmest gratitude. 

Your friendship has been extended to me down to the present time, and 
is now evinced by allowing me to dedicate to you this address on " Modern 
Engineering," a work which you examined and advised upon, in manuscript, 
and was pleased to approve. 

Your eminent services, exalted talent, and long career in the profession, 
have earned for you the title of its Father in this country, and renders it 
peculiarly appropriate that this tribute of gratitude, affection and respect, 
should come from your oldest living pupil. 

Very sincerely, yours, etc., 

Wm. J. McALPINE. 

Albany, April 30th, 1874. 



In 1868, the American Institute resolved to have 
a course of twelve scientific lectures delivered in 
New York, and selected therefor the following gen- 
tlemen and subjects : 

1st. By Rev. F. A. P. Barnard, LL.D., President of Columbia College of 
New York, " On the Microscope and its revelations." Wednesday, 
November 25th, 1868. 

2d. By Prof. Stephen Alexander, of Princeton College, New Jersey, 
"On the Telescope." Friday December 4th, 1868. 

3d. By Prof. Guyot, also of Princeton Colleg-e, " On the Barometer." 
Friday, December 11th, 1868. 

4th. By Prof. Benjamin Silliman, of Yale Colleg-e, Conn., "On the Phi- 
losophy of the Tea Kettle." Wednesday, December 16th, 1868. 

5th. By Prof. I. W. Dawson, Principal of McGill Colleg-e Montreal, "On 
the Primeval Flora." Wednesday, December 23d, 1868. 

6th. By Prof. James Hall, State Geolog-ist of New York, "On the Evolu- 
tions of the North American Continent." Wednesday, Decem- 
ber 30th, 1868. 

7th. By Prof. E. N. Hosford, of Cambridge, Mass., "On the Philosophy 
of the Oven." Wednesday, January 6th, 1869. 

8th. By Doctor T. Sterry Hunt, of Montreal, Canada, "On Primeval 
Chemistry." Wednesday, January 13th, 1869. 

9th. By Prof. R. Ogden Doremus, of the College of the City of New York, 
"On the Photometer." Friday, January 22d, 1869. 

10th. By Prof. B. Waterhouse Hawkins, of London, England, "On Com- 
parative Zoology." Wednesday, January 27th, 1869. 

11th. By Prof. I. T. Cook, of Harvard University, Mass., "On the Spec- 
troscope." Wednesday, February 3d, 1869. 

12th. By Hon. William J. McAlpine, of New York, President of the 
American Society of Civil Engineers, "On Modern Engineering." 
Wednesday, February 10th, 1869. 



On the last evening, before the lecture was deliv- 
ered, the Hon. Horace Greeley, the President of the 
Institute, made the following address : 

Ladies and Gentlemen : The American Institute, disappointed 
in being able in the year lately closed to give such an exhi- 
bition of the products of American industry as it deemed fit or 
worthy of its own reputation and high character, postponed 
that exhibition to the year on which we have now entered ; 
and, instead of it, resolved to give a course of scientific lectures 
of the very highest import and value within the power of Amer- 
ican genius and culture to afford. 

It is a very common, but I think a very undeserved reproach, 
that New York is so intent on money making, or on pleasure, 
that it has no time, no thought, and no means to give to the 
advancement of science. 

On the contrary, I believe that if a project were to-day fairly 
presented to the rich men, and the public spirited men (w T ho are 
not always the rich men) of New York, and if such a plan were 
to seem to them feasible and judicious, a million dollars would 
be freely bestowed, if necessary, for the achievement of the 
purpose therein indicated. 

The Institute resolved to test, so far as it might, the justice of 
the reproach commonly made that this city is given up wholly 
to trade and money getting, and would give no thought to any 
more elevated or abstract purposes. 

We resolved to give the best course of lectures on science, 
choosing that man whom we supposed to be best qualified to 
illustrate each important branch or department of natural science, 
in its present fullest development, and with the very latest dis- 
coveries which have enlarged its area. 

This plan was matured, submitted to the Institute, approved 



by it, and the lecturers called not only from all parts of our 
country, but from the British provinces adjacent, where, I rejoice 
to say, that some of the very ablest of those who cultivate chem- 
istry and geology, not merely as a practice but as a true science, 
were found. 

This lecture to night is the last of the course. That course, we 
rejoice to say, has been sustained by the unanimous approval of 
the press, and by the presence here of very large and intelligent 
audiences, sometimes in spite of very discouraging weather. 

We have seen and proved that science, even abstract science, 
has charms for a very large portion of this community ; and we 
shall be encouraged. 

While we did not expect to make money, and shall never 
make money by a course of this kind ; while we shall expect to 
spend money in every such course, we shall be encouraged by the 
approval of judicious men given to this course, to make other, 
and if possible better arrangements for similar courses during the 
winters to come. 

The lecture this evening is on Modern Engineering, and will 
be given by Prof. William J. McAlpine, favorably known to the 
community as a very competent, practical, as well as educated 
engineer. 



The New York Tribune of the twelfth of February, contained 
the following notice of the address and an abstract report 
thereof : 



SCIENTIFIC LECTURES. 



THE HON. WILLIAM J. McALPINE 
ON MODERN ENGINEERING. 



The twelfth and concluding scientific lecture before the Amer- 
ican Institute was delivered on Wednesday evening, February 
10th, at Steinway Hall, by Prof. William J. Mc Alpine. 

Upon the platform were seated Horace Greeley, Admiral 
Farragut, Gen. Callum, Supt. of the U. S. Military Academy at 
West Point ; Gen. H. G. Wright, commanding Sixth Army Corps ; 
Gen. Tower, Engineer Corps U. S. A. ; Gen. Q. A. Gillmore, the 
capturer of Fort Pulaski, Fort Wagner, &c. ; Horatio Allen, 
Civil Engineer, Novelty Works ; Prof. Hosford, of Harvard ; 
Prof. Tillman, of New York, and others. 

Horace Greeley, the President of the American Institute, 
made some introductory remarks, and at the conclusion the 
following resolutions were adopted : 

In view of the entertainment and instruction afforded by this course of 
scientific lectures which has been closed this evening, 

Resolved, That the thanks of the audience are hereby tendered to the 
American Institute and to the scientific gentlemen for the highly instructive 
entertainments thus provided. 

Resolved, That the American Institute be requested to have this course 
of lectures published in book form. 



MODERN ENGINEERING. 



By Wm. J. McAlpine. 



The subject of my address this evening has so wide a range 
and involves the consideration of so many branches of art and 
science, that I have been compelled to condense my remarks, and 
also to omit much of an interesting character to bring my address 
within the limit of the hour. 

It cannot have failed to have attracted the attention of such 
audiences as have attended these lectures, that a marked charac- 
teristic of this age, is the wonderful rapidity with which discover- 
ies in every range of art and science have succeeded each other. 
These are confined to no one branch of human knowledge, but 
apply equally to all pursuits of study. They now succeed each 
other like November meteors — dazzling in their brilliancy, so 
frequent, and spread so far over the arch of heaven as not to be 
even counted, far less comprehended. 

The eminent scientists who have lectured before you have 
each been profound students in their own lines of thought, and 
almost they only know of, or at least understand, the discoveries 
in their own courses of study. 

Our Creator has given us great mental powers, but to no one 
person sufficient capacity to grasp all knowledge. 

When we have listened to the wonderful revelations of minute 
organism, as developed by the microscope, and find there the 
perfection of beauty and mechanism — or when, through the 
telescope, we learn of the constitution and government of those 
great but far distant heavenly bodies, and find there the same 



10 

perfection of beauty and order ; or when the spectroscofie, plioto- 
meter and barometer tell of the constituents of matter around us ; 
or when an essay on the simple tea-kettle informs us of the prac- 
tical application of knowledge to one of the most useful and 
powerful of the agents of modern progress, then we realize how 
impossible it is for one mind, however capacious, to grasp even a 
tithe of the discoveries which are daily being made. 

My subject (Modern Engineering) requires a comparison of 
the past with the present. Then discoveries were of rare occur- 
rence, and still more rarely applied to the useful purposes of 
life — noiv they are not only very frequent, but are immediately 
applied to the safety, comfort and convenience of man. The 
natural mental capacity of man has not increased since those 
earlier days, and therefore there must be some other explanation 
of its present changed condition. 

An enthusiast, like Dr. Cummings, reasons from it, that the 
millenium is approaching, and another, that intercourse with the 
immaterial world is at hand — but the subject is too profound for 
our finite minds, and similar to divine prophesy, " the event is 
necessary to its solution." 

An idea attributed to Bacon is, that, as in all animate life, 
thought must be impregnated by thought, to produce any useful 
result. 

In ages past, intercourse between man and man was limited. 
He lived and died without having traveled beyond the horizon 
seen from his birthplace. Learned men were confined to cloisters. 
They rarely met, and their reflections were only occasionally set 
down in manuscripts, the circulation of which was confined to a 
few readers. 

Hence by this Baconian theory but few scientific discoveries 
could then be made, and these were but seldom applied to the useful 
purposes of life. This age, on the contrary, presents the oppor- 
tunity for frequent meetings and comparisons of thought. The 
steamer with its ten days of confinement, produces intercourse 
between minds which otherwise would have never met. The 
railway car, with its rapid motion, exciting thoughts in the dullest 
traveler, brings other minds in contact. A prolific press sends 
forth the thoughts of each writer, to encounter those of other 
minds engaged in the same, or some kindred pursuit. While the 



11 

telegraph daily sends the report of one or more discoveries, to 
stimulate the minds of some of the millions whom it reaches, to 
the consideration of the same or some other corresponding line 
of thoughts. 

In all of these communions, the cruder thoughts of each person 
are cast into the crucible with those of a thousand other minds, 
by which errors are eliminated and useful suggestions generated, 
and the grand discoveries to which I have alluded are produced. 

The profession of Engineering is peculiarly the exponent of 
this modern development. Its definition is, " The acquisition of 
that species of knowledge whereby the great sources of power in 
nature are converted, adapted and applied for the use and con- 
venience of man." * 

Under this definition is embraced the Civil and Military 
Engineer, the Architect and Mechanician, the Closet Theorist 
and the Practical Workman. Nevertheless, there is a broad 
distinction between the one who designs and plans an elaborate 
machine, and him who, with no scientific knowledge, merely con- 
structs it, and again with him who, with no requirement of either 
mechanism or science, is merely employed to direct its move- 
ment, and yet, in common conversation the term " Engineer " 
is indifferently applied to each. 

I shall presently lay before you at greater length, the effect of 
the great discoveries and applications made by this profession 
upon modern progress, and in this place will merely name the 
Locomotive and its Railw T ay, the Steam Engine and its applica- 
tions, the huge masses of metal and their manipulations, the 
workshops and their great tools, modern ordnance and armor, 
naval construction, telegraphy, bridges, canals, water supplies, 
harbors, etc. 

The mere mention of these is sufficient to give you an idea 
of the broad field which is covered by my subject, and why, as 
stated at the beginning, I have been compelled to condense and 
omit so much. 

Under these circumstances I have considered it better to direct 
my remarks to the most important branch of the profession (civil 



* This is the motto of the Institution of Civil Engineers of Great Britain and is 
embodied in their certificates of membership. 



12 

engineering), with such incidental allusions to the others as may 
be necessary. 

The term " modern " will require some comparisons with that 
of ancient engineering, and I will give very briefly a few of the 
leading points in the history of the profession so as to define the 
" modern age." 

Ancient Engineering. 

The history of Highways commenced with the bridle paths of 
the rude people who first tamed the wild animals, the introduc- 
tion of carriages for the aged, sick and powerful, and culminating 
in the modern paved roads and railways ; 

That of the navigation of Rivers, large and small, from the 
days of rafts to the magnificent steamers of the present day ; 

Of artificial Canals, first for irrigation, and then their adapta- 
tion for transportation, beginning by copying the natural rivers, 
even to the inclined water and land planes, over which the vessels 
were carried, and after the thirteenth century with locks ; 

And in the history of those small vessels, with wooden frames, 
covered with osiers and hides, which first navigated the pacific 
inland seas, and next those which coasted the oceans, seeking a 
harbor each night, then the great show ships of Italy and Egypt, 
and finally the immense merchant navies of the present day. 

Referring to Divine History we find that the first mechanician 
(an antediluvian) was " an instructor of every artificer in brass 
and iron," and that the first naval engineer constructed a vessel 
which has only once since been exceeded in size, and that the 
first architect built " a city and a tower," which became one of 
the seven wonders of the heathen world. We find, also, the 
architect of the Tabernacle, who was " learned in all of the 
knowledge of the Egyptians," and him of the first Temple who 
was endowed by God with " wisdom and knowledge " beyond 
that of any other man, and him also of the second temple who 
was possessed of all the learning of the Chaldeans. 

In profane history we find Hercules deified for draining the 
marshes of Thessaly ; and the first bridge builder, Semiramus, 
whom we are the more proud of classing in our profession as she 
was a woman, and who is also said to have tunneled the Eu- 
phrates, constructed canals and reservoirs for irrigation, and com- 
menced the walls and hanging gardens of Babylon. Of Phidias, 



13 

the constructor of another of the seven wonders, who built the 
first water works of Athens, tunneling Mount Athos for two miles, 
with a passage of eight feet diameter ; of Archimides, the military 
engineer, who defended Syracuse so long by his science alone 
against the whole power of Rome ; and of Vitruvius, the anylist, 
by whose engineering rules we are yet governed. 

But the early history of the profession has been best written 
in its monuments, extending from the days of Abraham to those 
of Constantine. In the great temples of Assyria, Egypt and 
India, and those of the Central and Southern American conti- 
nent ; of the long canals for transport or irrigation in China, 
India and Egypt ; of the water- works, with their tunnels through 
mountains ; aqueducts over valleys ; immense reservoirs, and 
systems of pipes, and in the great military roads, bridges and 
sewers of the Romans. 

These histories bring us down to the first centuries of the 
Christian era — the Augustan age of ancient engineering — after 
which civilization was overwhelmed by or lapsed into barbarism, 
and engineering was only practiced by a secret fraternity of 
Masons, " The Brothers of the Bridge." 

Modern Engineering. 

With the revival of civilization in the seventeenth century 
dates the commencement of modern engineering, though the 
term will be more particularly applied to the last hundred years. 

This revival began in Italy, in the construction of canals for 
irrigation, and subsequently with those for transport with locks, 
which had not been used until the thirteenth century ; in the 
investigation of the laws which govern the flow and pressure 
of water, and in the construction of great hydraulic works — 
bridges over rivers, harbors and docks, and the reclamation of 
lands under water. 

The great canals of France, Holland and Great Britain, and 
the improvement of rivers ; the thousands of acres of wet docks 
in England and France to overcome the inconvenience of the 
tidal wave, harbors and light-houses, show the progress of the 
profession for the next two centuries. 

The last century has been characterized by the application of 
steam to water and land transport, to every variety of mechanical 



14 

operations, to the product and manipulation of metals, to tele- 
graphy, and to printing in its various improved forms. 

Some of the most distinguished of the earlier of the modern 
engineers were recruited from other trades and professions, and 
were drawn into it from circumstances, or a natural inclination 
toward the study of the physical sciences. 

With the continued advance of refined civilization, the demand 
for this service called for a higher degree of elementary educa- 
tion, until it has required from the modern engineer, not only 
the highest degree of knowledge in the physcial sciences, but 
also long practical experience and sound judgment in the appli- 
cation of such knowledge. 

During this period the profession — as in all others — has suffered 
somewhat in the public estimation by pretenders, quacks and 
charlatans. 

The wide dissemination of knowledge among our American 
people has now reached a point which enables the claims and 
merits of an engineer to be fairly judged, and henceforth such 
pretenders will be employed only in schemes of doubtful expedi- 
ency, or by those who are themselves but little acquainted with 
the ordinary principles of science. 

The ordeal of criticism by our daily and other periodical 
journals serves, not only to expose such pretentious claims, but 
also to restrain the eccentricities of genius, and now compels the 
engineer to the enunciation of sound theoretical as well as purely 
practical plans. 

The Locomotive. 

I have referred to the effect of the great discoveries and appli- 
ances of engineering upon modern progress. The first of these 
of which I shall speak is the locomotive, a machine of purely 
modern invention. 

When I first entered the profession, but little more than forty 
years ago, it had not been successfully used anywhere, and was 
almost wholly unknown in this country. 

At the beginning of this century, a rude machine of this kind 
was invented by our countryman, Oliver Evans, and a few years 
later was reinvented in England, and after the trial of many 
modifications and expedients, during the succeeding tw T enty-five 



15 

years, the celebrated trial of locomotives was had at Liverpool, 
in 1829. 

Stephenson won the prize at this trial with the Rocket (which 
is now kept on exhibition at the Kensington Museum), an engine 
which weighed but four and a quarter tons, ran fourteen miles 
an hour, and hauled a gross load of seventeen tons. 

To exhibit the progressive changes in the locomotive, the maxi- 
mum speed attained at different periods will be given. In 1834 
it was twenty miles an hour ; in 1839 it was thirty-five miles ; 
in 1841 it was sixty miles, and since that time a speed of one 
hundred miles an hour has been attained. 

The first locomotive in the United States was driven by horse 
power, in 1829, and attained a speed of ten miles an hour, and 
was designed by Mr. Detmold of New York, who the next year 
built a steam locomotive for the Charleston, South Carolina 
railway. 

In 1829, Horatio Allen, of New York, brought over two loco- 
motives from England for the Carbondale railway. 

In 1830, Peter Cooper placed a small one on the Baltimore 
railway, and in 1831, John B. Jervis designed and placed two 
locomotive engines upon the Albany railway, one of which was 
built in England and one at the West Point foundry. 

There are now some fifteen thousand locomotives on our 
American railways, and on one line in England there are about 
three thousand. 

The usual weight of the locomotive is now thirty tons, but 
there are a great many in use of forty, and a few of fifty tons. 
M. Petiet has placed twenty-five locomotives 6*f sixty-nine tons 
weight upon the northern railway of France to run the London 
express passenger trains between Paris and Calais. These are 
mounted on twelve drivers and carry their own wood and water. 

It was once considered that curves of less than half a mile 
radius, or grades of more than fifty feet per mile were inadmis- 
sible. Now curves of five hundred feet radius, and grades of one 
hundred feet per mile are common. 

The temporary railway over Mount Cenis has long grades of 
four hundred and forty feet per mile, over which all of its traffic 
is conducted by locomotives grasping a central rail. 

Some years ago there was also a temporary track on the 



16 

Baltimore railway of five hundred and twenty-eight feet per mile, 
up which the locomotives daily hauled twice their own weight. 

Forty years ago Mr. Allen had to mount the foot-board of the 
first locomotive and run it himself. Not a mechanic in the 
employ of the railway company dared to let loose this monster. 
Now, fifteen thousand of them are daily whirling over forty 
thousand miles of railway in this country alone, and nearly 
twice as many in the rest of the world. 

To-day, locomotives are crossing the summit of the Rocky 
Mountains and of the Sierra Nevada — more than eight thousand 
feet above the level of the sea — and pass over more than three 
thousand miles of continuous railway from the Atlantic to the 
Pacific Ocean.* 

What changes have this one engine of the profession brought 
about in the condition of society in this country ? From the days 
of Noah until those of the locomotive, civilized population all 
over the globe was confined to the rivers, lakes and borders of 
the oceans, or a day or two's ride into the interior. 

The mariner's compass carried this population across the 
Atlantic, where, following the same law, our settlements were 
confined to the vicinity of these water courses. 

As soon as the locomotive was inaugurated, our railways were 
pushed forward into the interior of those immense fertile districts 
of the West, and they were populated with unexampled rapidity, 
and then began that era of prosperity which has raised our 
country to its eminence among the nations. 

This era has been unlike any which has preceded it in the 
world's history. An avalanche of people upon a wilderness 
almost in a day. Not like those northern hordes upon the civil- 
ized plains of Europe and Asia to lay waste and destroy, but a 
migration of the highest degree of civilization upon barbarism, 
to build up and create. 

Without the locomotive these fertile lands, their wealth of 
minerals and forests, their great cities, their industrious, wealth- 
producing population — yea, more than one-half of the population 
and sources of our prosperity would have remained undeveloped 
for ages, perhaps forever. 

Changes like these of our own country are now in operation all 



*See Appendix A for a statement of the railways of the world. 



17 

over the world, and railways have been built or projected even 
through the most barbarous regions. 

Bat there are too many of these engines of the profession to 
allow me to dwell long upon any one of them. 

The second one to which I will refer is the application of steam 
to the propulsion of vessels. This has covered every ocean, lake 
and navigable river with fast moving, deeply-laden vessels, con- 
veying the peoples and products of different climes and nations 
to others, and enhancing the comfort, convenience and profit of all. 

You will remember that all this has been accomplished during 
the nineteenth century, and that the chief development has been 
made in but little more than thirty years. 

Twenty years ago a voyage of twenty days across the Atlantic 
was called a quick passage ; now it is made in eight, and will 
soon be made in six days. 

Indeed, the question of speed on either land or water may now 
be determined by the public. Almost whatever speed it is 
willing to pay for, the engineer is ready to furnish. 

The construction of railways and steam vessels has called into 
requisition the highest engineering skill that the world has ever 
known. Bridges of extraordinary span and strength, vessels of 
immense burden, machinery of great power, massiveness, and 
accurate workmanship. The Britannia and Niagara bridges are 
but types of thousands of similar structures all over the world. 

The Great Eastern steamship of twenty-two thousand and five 
hundred tons is premature by only a few years, for those of six 
thousand, seven thousand and even nine thousand tons are now 
built. And the enormous engines and ponderous masses of metal 
required by them, have taxed the inventive power of the mechani- 
cians. 

Canals. 
The great canals executed in our day form an important fea- 
ture in this progress. I shall endeavor to illustrate my subject, 
as far as possible, by American examples, and w T ill therefore 
next refer to the Erie Canal ; and the more so, because in con- 
versation with many, otherwise well informed persons, I find 
that they do not fully appreciate the importance of this great 

2 



18 

work upon nearly all of the interests of this city, of this State, 
and of the nation itself. 

With many persons there is an idea that the railway has 
superseded the canal, and that the former now performs the 
chief part of the traffic of the country. While the latter is true 
in regard to interior short lines of trade, it is a serious error in 
reference to the great transport between the agricultural West 
and the Atlantic. 

It is difficult to realize the importance of the Erie Canal, which 
now conveys one-fourth of the exports of the vast interior region 
of our country and as much of it, during its six months of 
uninterrupted navigation, as all of the trunk railways together 
during the same time. 

Every canal boat which comes to tide-water with an average 
cargo contains more than the average tonnage of a railroad 
freight train. 

In the busy canal season, more than one hundred and fifty 
such boats come daily to tide-water, and none of the trunk 
railroads exceed fifty freight trains per day. 

Such a canal traffic w T ould require the arrival of more than 
forty miles of railroad cars ; and there is neither room nor 
conveniences for discharging one-fourth as many. 

The slow, plodding canal boat attracts no attention, while the 
bustle, noise and whirl of a freight train creates a sensation in 
every village through which it passes. 

The locks on the canals act as regulators of the boats, which 
are kept separated by the distance which they would move during 
one lockage ; and hence while the canal business proceeds 
methodically it gives no adequate idea to a casual observer of its 
great volume. Nor is this appreciated until some stoppage 
occurs, and then a delay of twenty-four hours will accumulate 
hundreds of boats ; the cargoes of which would fill the track of 
the New York Central railway half way to New York. 

Imagine, the effect of a catastrophe which would interrupt the 
navigation of the canals for one season. 

All of the New York railways combined could not transport 
one-half of the canal tonnage ; the entire capacity of all of the 
railways to the seaboard in their present condition would be 
insufficient to convey it. 



19 

Half the merchants of New York, connected directly or indi- 
rectly with this canal traffic, would be bankrupted, and their 
rivals in Portland, Boston, Philadelphia and Baltimore would be 
correspondingly benefited. 

The four thousand canal boats, of an aggregate of a million of 
tons, moving five millions of tons of cargo per annum, exceeds 
the tonnage of all the vessels engaged in the foreign commerce 
of this city, even before the war. 

In another place I have alluded to the great trade of the West, 
which will soon exceed the capacity of even this enlarged canal, 
and require it to be again enlarged for vessels of a thousand tons, 
or three times those now in use. 

A few days since the State Engineer informed me that there had 
been used, up to this time, more than two and a half millions of 
tons of stone in its works of masonry, and more than seventy- 
five millions of tons of earth and rock in the construction of its 
channel — more excavation than will be used in the building of the 
two thousand miles of the Pacific Railway.* 

City Water Works. 

The works for the public supply of water to all of our great, and 
to many of our smaller cities and villages, deserve mention. 

There is hardly a town, especially in the northern part of this 
country, which has not a public w T ater supply, and the engineer- 
ing works of the most of them have been skillfully executed. 

But there is no w T ork of this kind in the world wmich will com- 
pare in engineering merit with the Croton, in the designs for its 
structures, and their construction in the most skillful and durable 
manner, without unnecessary expenditure, and solely for utility, 
and at a cost so moderate as to astonish the profession-! 

t 
Bridges. 

Our American examples of bridges are almost without number, 

embracing those of nearly every material and form, and many of 

them of huge proportions. Among the most noted of these are 

the Niagara and Cincinnati, of wire, suspension, by Roebling ; 

the iron trusses over the Ohio, by Fink, and the Mississippi, by 

* See Appendix for a statement of the dimensions, etc., of the canals of the -world, 
also of the cost of transport by land and water. 

t This remark applies only to the original construction. 



20 

Clark ; the stone arch near Washington, by Meigs ; the Havre 
de Grace, of wood, by Parker ; the cast iron arched bridge at 
Philadelphia, by Kneass ; the Victoria (Montreal) bridge, by 
Stephenson (a duplicate of the Britannia iron girder bridge), 
with hundreds of others equally deserving of mention.* 

Submarine "Works. 

The submarine works executed by our American engineers 
have required a degree of science and skill at least equal to that 
demanded for any European work. 

The most important of these are the founding of the piers of 
the Potomac and Croton Aqueducts ; of the Havre de Grace and 
Harlem bridges ; and the foundations of the United States' Grav- 
ing Dock at Brooklyn.! A brief description of the latter will 
serve to explain the engineering difficulties which were also 
encountered in the others. 

This structure w r eighs seventy-five thousand tons, and is sus- 
tained on a quicksand of more than a hundred feet depth. The 
foundation had to be placed at "a level forty feet below that of the 
sea, and rendered perfectly unyielding. The sea water had to 
be shut out by massive coffer-dams, which were twice under- 
mined by the pressure of the water, and the land portions of 
these dams — subjected to the pressure of the liquid quicksand, 
of nearly twice the weight of water — repeatedly broke the chain 
cables by which they were secured (these cables being the best 
bowers by which our largest men-of-war ride in the heaviest 
storms). Fresh water springs, with a head far greater than that 
from the sea, again and again undermined the piles (driven 
nearly forty feet) and forced up large areas of the foundation, by 
their hydrostatic pressure, although heavily loaded. The super- 
structure of the finest cut granite, in which the slightest yielding 
would have been perceptible, stands to-day as firm as if founded 
on solid rock.J 

The Harlem Bridge has been mentioned because of the novel 

* See Appendix for dimensions, etc., of many of the large bridges. 

t Since the above was written, the foundations of the two piers of the East River 
Bridge, and those for the St. Lonis Bridge have been completed, and are the most 
stupendous and successful illustrations of the pneumatic system that can be found in 
the world. 

+ See Appendix for details of the foundations of the U. S. Graving Dock, at the Brook- 
lyn Navy Yard. 



21 

construction of its piers, and a growing opinion on the part of 
American engineers that this system of founding piers in diffi- 
cult places will, in this country as in Europe, supersede those 
heretofore used. 

These piers are composed of large cast-iron columns, six feet 
in diameter, fifty feet long, and fifty tons weight each. These 
enormous piles were driven twenty-five feet deep into the gravel 
and rocky bed of the river, by the modern invention of the pneu- 
matic process, by which, with a six-horse engine, an air-pump, 
and a dozen men, these huge masses of iron w T ere handled with 
certainty and ease. 

I have stood on the platform and with a turn of my wrist sent 
this fifty tons plunging downward with almost frightful velocity, 
and then arrested it within the fraction of an inch of any desired 
depth.* 

The eastern terminus of the Pacific Railway at Omaha is now 
being connected with the railways on the east side of the Mis- 
souri by a bridge, the piers of which will be of cast-iron columns of 
eight feet diameter, driven eighty feet below the bed of the river 
by the same process. 

Machines and Tools. 

The civil engineer, however, has been enabled to accomplish 
some of his most stupendous undertakings through the instrumen- 
tality of the large masses of metal and the workmanship thereon, 
and by means of the great tools and engines with which he has 
been furnished by the skill and genius of the mechanical engi- 
neer. 

A mass of bronze or of iron of a ton weight, of specific form 
and workmanship, was almost, if not quite, unknown before the 
Christian era. Now we have those in cast-iron of from one hun- 
dred to one hundred and fifty tons, and, in common use, of from 
forty to sixty tons ; in wrought iron of thirty to forty tons, and 
in steel or bronze of twenty-five tons, cast in any desired form, 
and planed, turned or bored with an accuracy and finish equal to 
that of the works of a delicate Geneva watch. 

Bessamer has an anvil-block of cast-iron, made at one casting, 
of more than one hundred tons, and Krupp has another of one 

* See Appendix for notes on pneumatic foundations. 



22 

hundred and fifty. But neither of these required the skill which 
produced the bed-plate of the Adriatic (Collin's steamer) of six- 
ty-five tons, cast at the Novelty Works ten years ago, or those 
frequently made at other work shops. The casting of the former 
could be protracted through two days, the latter had to be cast 
many hours, or they would have been ruined. 

Ten years ago Mr. Allen cast and bored a steam cylinder of 
sixty-four square feet area in which he gave a dinner party and 
seated twenty-four persons. 

I have recently examined some of the largest " tools," as they 
are technically called, in the great workshops of the country, and 
have received from the proprietors statements of their dimensions 
and capabilities. 

Although my business requires me to study this part of the 
profession, I confess that I cannot keep up with the constantly 
increasing proportions of these Leviathan tools. 

Two years ago I examined the largest lathe in England (For- 
rester's at Liverpool), which swings twenty-two feet and will 
take in a shaft of forty-five feet length. 

Six months ago I saw one at Corliss's, at Providence, which 
swings thirty feet, and will take, in a shaft of fifty feet. In the 
former was turned off the main shaft of the Great Eastern, 
which weighs twenty-two tons. 

The shafts of the Bristol and Providence (Sound steamers) 
also weigh twenty-two tons, and those of the China steamers 
Japan and Great Republic weigh thirty-three and thirty-four 
tons, and they were turned off in American lathes. 

Corliss has recently cast pulley fly-wheels of thirty feet diam- 
eter and nine feet face, weighing fifty-six tons, and turned them 
off in his large lathe, and he is now finishing off a spur-wheel 
of the same diameter, weighing forty-five tons, and cutting on 
the face by machinery, cogs of twenty-four inches face and five 
and a half inches pitch. 

During the war he turned off twenty-five brass turret plates 
for our Monitors, of twenty-five and a half feet diameter — hav- 
ing at that time the only lathe in this or any other country in 
which they could be turned. He has also a planer which planes 
iron of fifty feet length, and others of ten feet height, or width. 

At the Boston Navy Yard is a machine, just set up, which A\ill 



23 

plane a piece of iron sixteen feet long, eighteen feet wide, or 
fourteen feet high. 

At the Morgan Works, New York, John Roach and Sons, there 
is one of these machines that will plane twenty-seven feet long, 
fourteen feet wide, or twelve feet high, and a slotting machine 
that will cut a face of eight feet diameter and seven feet high. 
There is also a boring mill at this shop which will finish off a 
cylinder of one hundred and thirty inches diameter and eighteen 
feet stroke. These planers and slotters cut off shavings in iron 
of two and a half inches width and nearly a quarter thick, and 
some of them are arranged with several of these cutters all work- 
ing at the same time. 

The rolling of the enormous plates for the iron-clad vessels 
of war requires, also, tools of immense size and power. 

But time would fail me to describe the power and majesty of 
these perfect, though ponderous tools. 

They furnish to the modern engineer thunderbolts more pow- 
erful than those forged for Jupiter. But they are used to build 
up and create — not to destroy. 

Military Engineering. 

Not long since I witnessed the complete perforation of a 
wrought-iron shield for an embrasure, of Fort Delaware, made of 
two plates measuring together fifteen inches thickness, by a can- 
non shot of twelve inches diameter and six hundred and twenty- 
four pounds weight, fired from a constructive distance of five 
hundred yards, and a distinguished officer remarked : " Gen. 
Rodman has in reserve his fifteen and twenty inch guns, but 
American engineers and mechanicians will soon furnish us with 
shields strong enough to resist even these enormous projectiles." 

The active force of the powder on the ball was forty thousand 
pounds per square inch — equal to twenty-two hundred and fifty 
tons — giving it an initial velocity of twelve hundred feet per 
second, or eight hundred miles an hour. 

The weight of spherical cannon shot are as the cubes of their 
diameters, and therefore one of twenty inches is five times as 
heavy as one of twelve inches. 

The " work " of a cannon shot is in direct proportion to its 
weight and the square of its velocity, and the effect of rifling 



24 

the gun is to largely increase the effect of the shot and its range. 
The largest American gun weighs fifty-eight tons, and throws a 
ball of one thousand and seventy-two pounds. Krupps' great 
steel rifled gun of fourteen inches bore, weighs fifty tons and 
would throw an elongated ball of a thousand pounds. It has 
been fired but twice. 

The largest English gun that has been tried, with a moderate 
degree of satisfaction, is the thirteen and three-tenths inch 
Armstrong rifle, weighing twenty-six tons and throws a ball of 
six hundred and ten pounds ; but these guns have all burst ; and 
even the twelve inch English gun is considered as yet an experi- 
ment. 

The twelve inch Rodman rifle weighs twenty-six tons and 
throws a solid elongated shot of six hundred and thirty pounds, 
and even a steel shot of six hundred and eighty- four pounds. 

The " Swamp Angel," used at the siege of Charleston, weighed 
eighteen and a quarter tons. It was an eight inch Parrott rifle, 
and threw shot of one hundred and fifty pounds into Charleston 
from a distance of five and a half miles. 

The foundation of the " Swamp Angel " was a novel one. It 
actually rested on fluid mud sixteen feet deep ; but the mud 
was confined in a square box of forty feet, made of sheet piles, 
driven into the sand below and made " mud tight." 

The platform of the gun (including the gun) weighed twelve 
tons, and was a mud-tight piston, fitting the box tightly. 

The great ancient rival of the " Swamp Angel " was the 
" Mons. Meg," now at Edinburgh Castle. It is thirteen and a 
half feet long and twenty inches bore, with a powder chamber 
of nine and three-quarter inches diameter, and the charge was 
" a peck of powder." The balls used were of stone, eighteen and 
a half inches in diameter. 

It was used at the siege of Dunbarton in 1489, and was injured 
in firing a salute in 1682. There used to be a quaint inscription 
upon it, about in these words : 

" Load me well, and sponge me clean ; 
And I'll drop you a shot at Calais Green," 

a distance of sixteen miles. 

There was some poetic license used by this ancient rhymster, 
for one of our distinguished engineer officers informs me that 



25 

with the most liberal allowance in his calculations, and with the 
advantage of ricochet on water, this gun could not possibly have 
had a range exceeding one and a half miles.* 

The capture of Fort Pulaski, near Savannah, affords a good 
illustration of the unerring certainty of the calculations of the 
effect of ordnance by modern military engineers. 

The breaching batteries had to be placed at a mile from the 
fort. The engineer (w T ho is also a member of our civil society), 
prepared his plans before leaving Washington, complete in every 
particular. 

I cannot refrain from using the General's own words, although 
stated at a social meeting, they have so thoroughly the ring of 
the true metal of the engineer, who, with science, experience and 
judgment, knows the result of his operations before he begins 
them. 

He said : " The capture of that work had been calculated and 
worked out on paper, with an almost absolute certainty of the 
pre estimated results, and I had almost as muqji confidence in my 
ability to breach the walls, as if I had gone to work on them 
with masons, hammers and chisels." 

Whitelaw Reid, in his " Ohio in the War," says : 

" On the evening of April 9, 1862, Gen. Gillmore issued his 
order for the bombardment. It was remarkable for the precision 
with which every detail was given. The directions for the 
breaching batteries will illustrate." [Here follows Gen. Gill- 
more' s order.] 

Mr. Reid continues : " These instructions, with few exceptions, 
were adhered to throughout. For their striking illustration of 
the unerring as well as preestimated results of applied science, 
engineers and artillerists will hold them not among the least 
remarkable features of the seige. 

" They were addressed to raw volunteer infantry, absolutely 
ignorant of artillery practice until the siege commenced, and 
taught what little they knew about serving the guns in the inter- 
vals of leisure from dragging them over the beach into battery," 
&c, &c. 



* It should, not weaken confidence in these calculations when I add that they were 
made by the gallant officer who had the direction and. the tiring of " Mons. Meg's " 

great rival, -the " Swamp Angel." 



26 



Construction Corps U. S. Army. 

A modest pamphlet of forty pages was published at the end 
of the late war. It is the Report of Gen. D. C. McCallum, on 
Military Railways. 

By a summary of their operations it appears that at one time 
there was a force of twenty-four thousand nine hundred and 
sixty-four men employed on these railways, two thousand one 
hundred miles of railway were operated with four hundred and 
nineteen locomotives and six thousand three hundred and thirty 
cars, and there was built and rebuilt six hundred and forty-one 
miles of railway, including twenty-six miles of bridges, and the 
whole expenditure of the department, after deducting the mate- 
rials sold at the conclusion of the war, was a little under thirty 
millions of dollars. 

When Gen. Grant advanced from Washington, on his final 
campaign, the Rappahannock bridge, six hundred and twenty- 
five feet long, and thirty-five feet high, was rebuilt in forty hours, 
including the furnishing of all of the timber from more than 
fifty miles distance, and the Potomac bridge, near Acquia Creek, 
four hundred and fourteen feet long, and eighty- two feet high, 
was built in the same number of hours. 

Fourteen miles of the railway was rebuilt in eight days, and 
was used for only one week, to convey eight thousand wounded 
men of both armies from the battle fields of the Wilderness and 
Chancel lorsville. 

On the evacuation of Richmond by Gen. Lee, the commander 
of the confederate army the railway was relaid, and put in ope- 
ration as rapidly as the troops marched. 

The cuts had been filled up with rocks, logs, brush and telegraph 
wires, presenting unusual difficulties, all of which had to be 
removed, the ties cut from growing trees, small bridges and cul- 
verts made, iron rails furnished and laid, and all of the sidings, 
water tanks, etc., renewed for a distance of nearly sixty miles, all 
of which was completed and ready for the locomotives at an 
average rate of a mile an hour. The order was that the railway 
must be completed to headquarters every night. Frequently the 
construction corps advanced, with a completed railway, faster 
than those who were employed in laying down the telegraph 
lines. 



27 

In one case a bridge near Petersburg!!, thirteen hundred feet 
long, and from fifteen to thirty-five feet high, was built from trees 
which were standing when the bridge was commenced, and it was 
completed in the seventy working hours of three days.* 

At the West, on Gen. Sherman's march from Chattanooga to 
Atlanta, in May 1864, the railway was constructed and " kept 
pace with the army." The Chattahoochie Bridge, seven hundred 
feet long, and ninety-two feet high, was built in four and a half 
days. 

In October of that year the confederate Gen. Hood passed around 
Sherman's army, and destroyed thirty-five and a half miles of the 
railway, and four hundred and fifty-five feet length of bridging. In 
thirteen days after he had retreated, the line was restored, and the 
trains run regularly. In one case twenty-five miles of track and 
two hundred and thirty feet of bridging in one stretch, at Tunnel 
Hill, were reconstructed in seven and a half days. 

In February, 1865, Gen. Forrest destroyed a long line of this 
railway, and in thirty days it was reconstructed, including two 
thousand two hundred feet of bridging. 

Gen. McCallum says : " Had any failure taken place, either in 
keeping these lines in repair, or in operating them, Gen. Sher- 
man's campaign, instead of proving, as it did, a great success, 
would have resulted in^disaster and defeat." 

Gen. Cullum told me that on the march to Atlanta some con- 
federate prisoners (old graduates of the U. S. Military Academy) 
expressed their astonishment at the wonderful rapidity with 
which the railways were reproduced. They said, " while bridges 
were yet burning your men had often commenced their recon- 
struction, and before the roar of the cannon were out of hearing, 
your railway trains were crossing these bridges." 

The reply was that Gen. Sherman had duplicate railroad bridges 
always ready. 

But, said another, " Your progress will be arrested at Tunnel 
Hill, for we have blown up the tunnel." 

"I doubt it, said a companion, " for the Federals have also 
probably a duplicate tunnel on hand." 

* This work was done under the personal direction and .superintendence of the 
author's brother. 



28 

Steam to Agriculture. 

The application of steam to the various purposes of manufac- 
ture, is worthy of a lecture by itself, and one can only realize its 
extent when passing through the numberless workshops engaged 
in such manufacture in our eastern cities and villages. 

I shall say no more on this subject at this time, except to call 
your attention to the recent successful movements, to apply steam 
power to agriculture. We have seen the resulting benefits from 
the introduction of the mowing machine, cultivator and reaper, 
worked by horse power, but we are soon to witness all of these 
as well as plowing done by steam power. 

The effect of this will be to bring thrice the number of acres at 
the West into use, and of increasing the crops more than three 
times as much as the present product, and soon render the great 
West the chief food-producing region of the world.* 

Telegraphy. 

Telegraphy may, with propriety, be considered one of the 
branches of engineering, and is peculiarly of modern develop- 
ment. 

A clever writer says that the telegraph may be read by each 
of the five senses. On land lines each signal is made by suspend- 
ing the flow of the electric current, for two different intervals of 
times, called "dots and dashes" — the use of which, in different 
orders, constitutes the alphabet of the telegraph. When these 
are printed, they are read by " sight," but ordinarily the opera- 
tor reads them by " sound," as easily as the musician reads the 
letters of the scale by the same sense. If the operator has no 
instrument, he will grasp the wire in his hands, and read the 
signals by " feeling" the intermissions of the flow of the electric 
current. In like manner, by placing the wire across his tongue 
he can "taste" the same intermission (but this is a dangerous 
experiment). And it is said that the electricity can be made to 
dissolve a chemical and produce a pugnent odor in the telegraphic 
alphabet, which can be read by " smelling," but for this I do not 
vouch. 

*The whole cereal product of Europe in 1867 was a little short of five thousand mil- 
lions Imperial bushels, and that of the United States in 1868 was fourteen hundred 
millions or nearly one-third. The cereal product of Russia was about the same as 
that of the United States. 

In an address to the merchants of New York, in 1873, the author estimated that the 
cereal products of the Western states would be doubled in ten years, equal to three 
thousand millions of bushels. (See Appendix, D.) 



29 

I believe that the method of signaling" through the Atlantic 
Cable is known in detail to but few persons. 

The operation is exactly reversed from that on the land lines. 

The gutta percha covering of the copper wires, under the pres- 
sure of a great depth of water, becomes an absorbent of the elec- 
tricity which is being sent through them to the extent of ninety 
per cent. 

The first portion of the electric wave of ten per cent, crosses 
the ocean (seventeen hundred miles) in two seconds, and it would 
be followed by a succession of waves from the restoration of that 
portion of the electricity which has been absorbed by the gutta 
percha, in impulses, and the signal would be repeated like echoes, 
and produce not only confusion, but great delay. 

To remedy this, Professor Varley introduced a key, which 
sends alternate currents, positive and negative, at such intervals 
as to allow the first wave of ten per cent, to pass forward, and 
then that portion absorbed by the covering is neutralized by 
ninety per cent, of the next wave of the opposite kind of elec- 
tricity, and the- cable is cleared for the transmission of a second 
pair of these opposite currents. 

The battery used is a very small one (three of Daniels's cups), 
and the signal being only ten per cent, of this small current, is 
powerless to move any of the instruments wmich are used on the 
land lines of telegraphs. 

The instrument used consists of a minute polarized needle, 
suspended on a single strand of a spider's web, or one from the 
silk worm. In the middle of this minute needle is placed an 
almost microscopic mirror, which reflects a single ray of light 
from a powerful lamp. The two kinds of the electric currents 
deflect this needle alternately to the right and left for a space of 
time corresponding to that occupied in the signal on the land line, 
the same kind of alphabet being used in both cases. 

The receiver (not operator) sits in a dark room, and the small 
mirror reflects the rays of light upon a piece of white paper 
before him, on which a black line is drawn, to the right and left 
of which the light is alternately reflected. 

The receiver reads these signals by " sight," and transmits 
them to another person, placed outside of the dark room, by 
means of an ordinary instrument. 

A short time since, Gen. Reynolds told me that he had sent a 



30 

message, without either a wire or cable, ninety-two miles, across 
an arm of Lake Superior, by means of the Heliotrope or sun 
mirror, and on the return of his messenger (who had been sent 
with a written copy), he found that the Heliotrope message had 
been received, understood, and obeyed. 

He had two assistants, who had been telegraphic operators, who 
had for the whole summer been amusing themselves in talking 
to each other with these instruments, although they were stationed 
ten, twenty or thirty miles apart. 

When the Confederate Gen. Morgan made his great raid 
through Indiana and Ohio, he captured one of my telegraph 
operators, and compelled him to send a message in G-en. Lew. 
Wallace's name to Cincinnati, asking how many regular troops 
were in that city. 

Morgan was also an operator and read by " sound," and there- 
fore the captured operator did not dare to intimate that he was 
under duress, and could only venture to add an extra initial to 
his own signature. 

The receiving operator at Cincinnati knew that Morgan was in 
that neighborhood, and suspecting, from the extra initial letter, 
that all was not right, replied, greatly exaggerating the force of 
regulars in the city ; and the consequence was that Morgan 
changed his route to a circuit of twenty miles beyond the city, 
and thus saved it from a sack, and the probable loss of millions 
of dollars. 

Ancient and Modern Engineering Compared. 

The consideration of the subject requires me to contrast modern 
engineering with that of former times. 

In the early ages the duties of the architect and engineer were 
combined, and we must refer to the works executed by the former 
for the practical examples for the profession. 

One of the results of a high degree of civilization is the division 
of labor, by which a greater perfection is attained by those who 
devote themselves to one pursuit, than when their studies are 
directed to several different, even though they are analogous ones. 
It is this condition of society which has, in modern times, sepa- 
rated these professions. 

As now understood, the former (the architects) are men of 
educated taste, who apply themselves almost exclusively to the 



31 

designing of public and private buildings, while the latter (the 
civil engineers) are men of scientific mechanism, who are chiefly 
engaged in designing and constructing roads, railways, canals, 
water works, and their necessary mechanical adjuncts. 

In a comprehensive sense, engineering also includes architec- 
ture, as a mechanical art, in distinction to it, as a fine art. 

While the duties of each run somewhat into the field of study of 
the other, yet they are, and ought in practice to be separated, so 
as to give the highest degree of perfection to each. 

The engineer is required to follow the exact rules of mathemat- 
ics, the stern deductions from science, and the rigid laws of 
mechanism, all of which unfit him for the higher nights of taste 
and imagination, which distinguish the architect ; while the con- 
sideration of these laws, and the details of construction dwarf the 
genius and taste of the architect. 

The works which the engineers in both ancient and modern 
times have been called upon to design and execute, are confined 
to those which are required in a highly cultivated condition of 
society, and where the accumulations of the profits of past indus- 
try furnish the pecuniary means. 

To some extent, therefore, their works belong to the luxuries 
of the age ; nevertheless it may be said of those of modern times 
that they are in an eminent degree those which are of the highest 
practical value to society. 

The wealth and prosperity of any country depends upon the 
skill and amount of its labor, usefully applied. The dense 
population of semi-barbarous nations, like China, lack the skill 
and application. The frozen regions prevent, and the torrid ones 
destroy, the inclination to labor. 

It is in the northern temperate zones that we find the greatest 
amount of labor and skill in its application, and through this 
belt shall we find our chief examples of engineering.* 

One of the remarkable physical features of the North American 
Continent is the existence of a plateau nearly in its geographical 
center, on the north line of Minnesota, from which navigable 
streams flow north, east and west into the three great oceans. 

The territory lying to the south and east of this remarkable 
plateau, in the salubrity of its climate, in the fertility of its soil, 

* " There is no energy without frost, and no poetry without summer."— Conkling. 



32 

in its varied productions, and in its extent and ready access to 
the great markets of the world, combines advantages superior to 
any other portion of the globe. 

Its discovery, settlement and development have followed each 
other so rapidly, that its history must be written annually, to 
keep pace with its progress, or to form a basis of an adequate 
estimate of its future importance and influence upon the trade 
and commerce of the world. 

Seventy years ago this region contained only scattered forts 
and trading posts, now it has one-third of the population of the 
nation. 

The world has never before witnessed such vast movements of 
"peoples" as have in this century flowed westward, and sub- 
sided upon this area. The migrations of the earlier ages were 
of savage hordes upon civilization — to lay waste and barbarize. 
This has been a migration of industry, intellect and wealth, to 
subdue a wilderness by the axe and plough. 

It is the peculiar duty of the engineer to instruct and direct 
labor ; and his value in his calling depends greatly upon his 
knowledge of, and ability to instruct in, the best methods of 
applying either skilled or unskilled labor. 

The works of the ancients are often referred to, as excelling 
in magnitude, accuracy of workmanship, and beauty of design 
those of modern times. 

This view is, in part at least, quite erroneous. 

The engineers of those days were employed by rich and pow- 
erful patrons, who furnished them numerous, though generally 
unskilled, laborers ; materials without regard to cost, and money 
without stint. 

Their works bear evidence of these conditions, and were chiefly 
confined to monuments of useless victories, or constructions in 
compliance with the whim or caprice of the monarch, or in defer- 
ence to their idolatrous worship. 

Yet there are exceptions. The transport canals of Egypt and 
China, those for irrigation in India and Assyria, the water- works 
all over the East, the vast military roads which radiated from 
the Imperial city and extended to the extremity of the Empire,* 



* " All of the cities of the empire (which then had three huadred millions of people 
under its rule) were connected with each other and with the capital by the public 
highways which, issuing from the Forum of Rome, pervaded the provinces and were 
terminated only by the frontiers of the Empire." If we carefully trace the distance 



33 

the bridges over rivers, and the ports and harbors of the inland 
seas, all bear evidence that these engineers were often called 
upon to plan and execute works designed for utilitarian pur- 
poses. 

While the great canals of China and those of Egypt were but 
imitations of the natural water-courses, without locks, yet many 
of the other works referred to, and especially those constructed 
by the Roman engineers, are fine examples of professional prac- 
tice. 

Large Monoliths. 

In alluding to the great works executed by the ancient archi- 
tects, mention must be made of the Temple of Baalbec, wherein 
are found the largest stones (save one) in any building in the 
world. 

Three of these measure sixty-eight, sixty-four and a quarter, 
and sixty-two feet in length, fifteen feet in height, and from the 
fourth corresponding stone yet in the quarry, but broken, the 
widths, or depths into the wall, are also fifteen feet. 

Bayard Taylor estimates that these stones are eight thousand 
tons weight, but by the above measurement the largest one 
weighs but twelve hundred and seventy-five tons. 

The quarry from which these stone were taken was within a 
mile of the Temple. 

The Monoliths of Egypt are from two to three hundred tons 
weight, and a few of seven hundred tons. The Obelisk of Luxor, 
now in Paris, is of Syene granite, and weighs two hundred and 
fifty tons.* The covering of a tomb at Ravenna is a single stone 
of thirty-four feet diameter and four feet thick, and weighed when 
quarried a thousand tons. 

from the wall of Antoninus, through York, London, over the English Channel, and 
through Rheims, Lyons and Milan to Rome, and thence across the Adriatic through 
Byzantium, Tarsus, Antioch and Tyre to Jerusalem, there was in all a distance'of 
4,080 Roman (or 3,740 English) miles, of which hut 85 were by water. 

\i xu „ „„.,,„ :^„*-:^„ ^et-Un i->^.^,„.« „ ,: i«„~ j>. ~ a i n _ 



ldria, Egypt, in ten."— GIBBON. 

I have seen on the Danube, the remains of a highway, constructed by Trajan in tin 
seond century, forming a shelf for many miles, cut out of the face of the rock cliff 
jfore gunpowder was known. 




* The French engineers were three years transporting it from Thebes to Paris. 

3 



34 

The " goodly stones " of the Temple, to which the Disciples 
called our Saviour's attention, according to Josephus, were of the 
" whitest marble, upward of sixty-seven feet long, seven feet high 
and nine feet broad," and therefore must have weighed three 
hundred and fifty tons. 

Eusebius, a profane writer, says that the Lieutenant of Titus 
tore up the foundations of this temple, so that Christ's remarka- 
ble prediction " That not one stone should be left upon another," 
was literally fulfilled w T ithin fifty years after it was delivered. 

Ancient Methods of Construction. 

I cannot better illustrate the comparison of modern with 
ancient engineering than by describing, from most trustworthy 
sources, the probable method of constructing the Pyramids, hav- 
ing particular reference to that at G-izeh, or, as it is often called, 
after its builder, " The Cheops." 

The engineers of that day had iron only in its malleable form, 
and did not possess the art of converting it into steel, and thus 
obtaining its high hardening power. They used other metals 
and alloys, chiefly bronze, or copper, hardened by tin or zinc. 

They doubtless split out their large columns from the solid 
ledges of rocks, like those of the Syene granite, with fire and 
water, as we often now see a farmer split up a hard and trouble- 
some bowlder. 

They worked these stones roughly into shape with their bronze 
tools, and subsequently by the tedious process of rubbing down 
the surfaces with stones of still firmer texture. 

The Pyramid was chiefly made from a soft limestone obtained 
from the opposite side of the Nile, but some of them came from 
quarries more than a hundred miles distant. 

The smaller stone were hauled on land by oxen, on sledges, 
and the remains of rude wooden tramways are still extant. 

The large stones were hauled by men, who could work in con- 
cert, to the sound of music, as shown in some of the Egyptian 
drawings. 

By calculation I find that to haul a stone of three hundred 
tons, on level ground, a thousand men would be required. 

Herodotus mentions one column at Sais, in Egypt, which, by 
calculation, weighed seven hundred and eighteen tons, which, he 



35 

says, required two thousand men for three years to haul it from 
the quarry, about one hundred miles distant. 

Our modern wooden scaffolding, and machinery for hoisting was 
unknown, and instead of them, an embankment was made 
around the structure, as wide as necessary to move k the stones, 
and this was reached by an inclined plane of earth upon which 
wooden slabs were laid, and the platform on which the stones 
were placed rested on wooden rollers. These earth embank- 
ments were raised up, as each successive course of stone was 
laid, and when the structure was completed the earth was 
removed. 

The strong mortars and cements of the Romans were unknown. 
They had to depend for the stability of their walls upon the 
massiveness of the stone, and the close fitting of the joints, and 
by dowels, one set of which were inserted vertically into the beds 
of the two stones, which were placed vertically of each other, and 
another set designed to tie the stones together horizontally. Both 
of these dowels were made either of bronze, or more generally of 
w r ood, and those arranged for the horizontal bond were shaped 
like an " hour glass," that is, dovetailed into each stone. The 
dowels of bronze have mostly been stolen, but those of wood are 
frequently found in complete preservation. 

This great Pyramid, with a base of seven hundred and forty- 
five feet square, and four hundred and fifty feet high, contains 
six and a half millions of tons of stones, and the embankments 
would have required more than fifty millions of tons of earth. 

You will be better able to realize these figures when I repeat 
that all of the masonry on the Erie Canal amounts to but two 
and a half millions of tons, or but one-third of that used in this 
great Pyramid, and that all of the earth which was moved to 
construct the three hundred and sixty miles of that canal, or for 
the five hundred miles of the Erie Railway, or even for the two 
thousand miles of the Pacific Railway. 

Each of them only equaled in quantity, that which was prob- 
ably used, in the place of scaffolding, to hoist and lay the stone 
of this Pyramid. 

Herodotus says that a hundred thousand men were engaged 
for ten years in building this earthern causeway, and that the 
same number of men were engaged for twenty years longer in 
laying up the masonry. 



36 

From the amount of earthwork which I have witnessed per- 
formed, by freshly imported Africans in Cuba, with baskets of 
earth carried on the head, as was probably the manner of work- 
ing at that time, I find that it would require about the number 
of men and years as stated to build such embankments. 

My own calculations show that these statements cannot be 
far wrong, and you will observe that they do not include the 
workmen who were employed in quarrying, cutting and trans- 
porting the stone, etc., which would have quadrupled the 
number. 

This great work required the labor of five hundred thousand 
men for thirty years, and at the present value of such labor in 
such countries, would have cost five thousand millions dollars. 

A modern engineer would construct such a work for one hun- 
dred millions of dollars, and with a tithe of the men. 

He would quarry the stone by steam-drills, load them with 
steam-cranes, transport them on the Nile with steam-vessels, 
and on land with locomotives. 

Instead of the fifty millions of tons of earthen embankments, 
costing ten millions of dollars, he would apply a few hoisting 
machines, and with a score or two of men, would deliver the 
stone to the hands of the masons, as fast as they could lay them. 

Ancient and Modern Buildings. 

I will give you one more example and comparison with ancient 
engineering. 

The Amphitheater or Coliseum of Rome was finished in the 
golden period of the profession, in the year 19 A. D. It was an 
oval, and inclosed, and covered an area of six acres. The 
structure weighed half a million of tons, and could seat seventy 
thousand persons. 

The contrast with this building may be made by referring to 
the Exhibition buildings of London and Paris. 

The London building was eighteen hundred and forty-eight 
feet long, and four hundred and fifty feet wide, and sixty-one 
feet high to the Dome roof. The area of the ground floor was 
seven hundred and seventy-three thousand square feet, or eighteen 
acres, being three times that of the Coliseum. The area of the 
galleries two hundred and seventeen thousand square feet, and 
of the glass nine hundred thousand. 



o7 

There were three thousand five hundred tons of wrought-iron, 
and four hundred tons of cast iron used in its construction. 

It was built in nine months with the labor of about two thou- 
sand men. 

The Paris building was an oval of two thousand, and fifteen 
hundred and fifty feet diameter, the outer court being one 
hundred and ten feet wide and eighty-two feet high, equiva- 
lent to a room four thousand and four hundred feet long, and 
one hundred and ten feet wide, or thirty-one acres area.* 

There are three Egyptian obelisks in Rome, brought there by 
Augustus, Caligula and Constantine. 

The largest one, now in front of St. Peter's, weighs two hun- 
dred and seventy five tons, and the vessel which brought it from 
Egypt was the largest which had, up to that time, " ever been 
seen upon the sea." 

It is said that when the engineer, Fontana, moved one of these 
columns to the Piazza del Popolo, in 1589, when it had been 
raised nearly to its poise, he found that the rope lashings had 
stretched so much that the main fall came "block to block," and 
it was impossible to fleet without lowering the column to the 
ground. 

While he and his associates were discussing how they could 
gain but one inch more, an old sailor came along, and as soon as 
he was told of the difficulty, sang out, " Why don't you wet the 
lashings, you lubbers?" The engineer took the hint, wet the 
ropes, which shrank enough to carry the column over the poise, 
which saved weeks of dangerous labor. 

Almost the same thing occurred in my practice. One of the 
long iron piles which I was driving into the bed of the Harlem 
had lurched a foot out of line. The most powerful purchases 
that I could rig would not move it. A sailor, in passing, said : 
" Make all fast, and wet your falls." This was done and accom- 
plished the desired object. 

Moving great Weights. 

While upon this subject of transporting great weights, I beg to 
call your attention to some of those moved in modern times. 
The largest stone in any erection in the world is the granite 

* The dimensions of the Vienna Exposition building, ami <>i* the proposed Centenary 
building- at Philadelphia, will be found in the Appendix. 



38 

base of the column of Peter the Great at St. Petersburg, which 
weighs three millions pounds, or one-fifth more than the largest 
stone at Baalbec. It was transported fifteen miles by land on a 
wooden tramway, with cannon balls for rollers. 

I have already mentioned the transport of the column of Luxor, 
and I might have added that it rests upon a single block of 
granite of one hundred and twenty tons, brought from Brittany 
sixty miles by land. 

There is a stone, the tazza, in the Treasury building at Wash- 
ington, which weighed, when quarried, three hundred tons, and, 
after being roughly worked down to one hundred tons was trans- 
ported by sea six hundred miles. And another, in the same build- 
ing, a buttress-cap, of the same quarry weight, was roughed off to 
eighty tons before shipment, and, as now finished, weighs sixty 
tons. 

The Great Eastern steamship was launched sideways, being 
forced a thousand feet by very powerful machinery. At this 
time the hull weighed upwards of eight thousand tons. 

The four tubes of the Britannia Bridge each weighed fifteen 
hundred tons and were launched, transported a mile through a 
strong tideway, and then elevated one hundred feet perpendicu- 
larly. 

But we have only to refer to the " house moving " of recent 
times, when a large brick building has been moved a consider- 
able distance ; or to greater ones, when whole blocks of large 
fine cut stone buildings in Chicago have been elevated ten 
or fifteen feet without disturbing the occupants in their regular 
avocations ; and at the present time, when all of the houses on 
one hundred and thirty acres of a compact part of Boston are 
being raised thirteen feet ; and also at Sacramento, where the 
whole city is being raised about fifteen feet. 

Ancient and Modern Ships. 

It may be interesting to compare the dimensions and tonnage 
of some of the largest vessels of former times with those of the 
present. 

The Ark was four hundred and fifty feet long, seventy-five 
feet wide, and forty-five feet high, and if its displacement corre- 
sponded with the modern form of large vessels, its tonnage was 
from twelve to fifteen thousand tons. 



39 

" Show " L ships were built by Hiero and the Ptolemies of from 
five hundred and sixty to five hundred and ninety feet long, 
from sixty to seventy-six feet wide, and eighty to one hundred 
feet high. These vessels never went to sea, and could only be 
maneuvred in calm water. They were manned by four thou- 
sand rowers, four hundred sailors, and twenty-eight hundred 
and fifty fighting men. Their tonnage was less than that of the 
Ark. 

The British ships in the time of Julius Caesar were built 
" with the keel and frame of light wood. A sufficient number 
of elastic twigs were interwoven between the ribs to give strength 
to the sides, which were afterwards covered with hides." 

" The first barks used on the Nile appear to have been formed 
of small planks of the Egyptian thorn, about three feet square, 
lapt over each other like tiles and fastened by treenails," * * * 
The joints and seams were caulked with the papyrus. 

" Hiero built a merchant ship of four thousand tons burthen, 
and the Egyptians, at a still earlier period, built the " Iris," one 
hundred and eighty feet long, forty-five feet broad, and forty- 
three feet from the keel to the upper deck." * * * " The 
burthen was about one thousand nine hundred tons." One 
author, inclined to exaggeration, says of this ship : " She was 
capable of carrying as much corn (wheat) as to have supplied all 
Greece for twelve months." 

In the time of Caius Csesar " a ship was built to convey the 
celebrated obelisk to Rome, and carried one hundred and twenty 
thousand bushels of corn merely for ballast." 

The galley built by Philopater " had oars fifty-seven feet long 
loaded with lead in the handles to balance them." * * * 
"The speed was from forty to sixty leagues in twenty-four 
hours." 

" The Sovereign of the Seas, built in 1637, the largest ship of 
her day, was two hundred and thirty-two feet long over all, had 
a keel of one hundred and twenty-eight feet, main width 
forty-eight, and depth of seventy-six feet from the keel to the 
top of the stern lantern." 

The Great Eastern is six hundred and ninety-five feet long, 
eighty-two feet beam, hold fifty-six feet deep, and draft when 
loaded ready for sea, thirty feet, and a tonnage of twenty-two 
thousand five hundred. Her hull, engines, etc., weigh twelve 



40 

thousand tons, and she has a carrying capacity of eight thousand 
tons of freight, and four thousand passengers, or she could trans- 
port ten thousand troops with all their munitions. 

There are some modern men-of-war of nearly nine thousand 
tons displacement. 

The Cunard and American sea steamers, those on the Sound 
and Hudson River, and even on the Mississippi, range from three 
thousand to five thousand tons.* 

Steam Engines and Pumps. 

The largest steam engines in the world were those used for 
draining Harlem Mere, in Holland. 

The steam cylinders were twelve feet diameter and fifteen 
feet stroke, and each one of the three engines drove eight water 
pumps of sixty-three and seventy-three inches diameter, and ten 
feet stroke. 

They were employed for seven years in pumping the water 
out of the lake to the depth of sixteen feet below the level of 
the sea, from an area of fifty-six thousand acres, or twice that 
of Manhattan Island, which involved the removal of eight 
hundred million tons of water. 

Each of these engines were capable of delivering two hundred 
millions of gallons of water per day, and w 7 hen the three engines 
worked together would discharge a volume six times as great as 
that which the Croton Aqueduct is capable of delivering. 

The next largest pumps in the world are those at the United 
States Dry Dock, at Brooklyn (which are sixty- three inches 
diameter, and ten feet stroke), and capable of delivering thirty 
millions of gallons of water per day, from a depth nearly three 
times as great as that of the Harlem Mere. 

The steam engines next in size to those at Harlem are those 
of the Bristol and Providence steamers, with cylinders of nine 
feet two inches diameter, and twelve feet stroke. 

A new pumping engine in London and one in Cincinnati have 
also cylinders of this size. 

* As late as the fourth century the Romans employed sea merchant vessels m;ide of 
wooden frames covered with 'lades instead of plank. Those of seventy tuns were 
called " very large vessels." 



41 



Bessamer Steel. 

One of the greatest of modern discoveries is the process of 
converting great masses of pig or cast-iron into steel, in twenty 
minutes, without the aid of fuel or furnace, at a cost of half a 
cent a pound, and developing a heat heretofore unknown or 
unused in the arts, and a light equal to the combined effect of 
all the gas-burners in the city of New York. 

When it is remembered, that by the ordinary process, it 
requires several hours to decarbonize cast-iron and render it 
malleable, and then a fortnight to recharge it with the small 
quantity of carbon to convert it into steel, and another smelting, 
to produce cast-steel, thereby increasing the cost of the product 
four-fold, you will see the extent of the changes which this 
discovery is destined to introduce in engineering structures. 

Steel of more than twice the strength of wrought-iron will 
soon be furnished at almost the same price. 

Already we have witnessed the commencement of this revo- 
lution in the substitution of steel for iron rails upon all our lead- 
ing railways. 

Apprehensions have been expressed that steel, which is usually 
considered so brittle, will not withstand the heavy shocks of 
the locomotives in our severely cold climate. But I can say, 
from my own experiments and examinations here and abroad, 
that steel rails, properly made, are really very much tougher and 
much less liable to break in extreme cold weather than those 
made of the best of wrought-iron. 

In fact, by this new process the rails are necessarily made of 
the exact degree of hardness and toughness that is demanded, 
and the English engineer now prescribes the extent of the 
carbonization of the iron, with a limit of variation of only one- 
tenth of one per cent. 

The tires of locomotives, the axles of cars, the large rods of 
steam-engines, large and small shafting, and many other of the 
most important parts of machinery are now made of this metal, 
and we shall soon find it in common use, wherever strength or 
security is demanded. 



42 



The Seven Wonders of the World. 

The Seven Wonders of the ancient world were : 

1. The Egyptian Pyramids. 

2. The Mausoleum of Artimesa. 

3. The Temple of Diana at Ephesus. 

4. The walls and hanging- gardens at Babylon. 

5. The Colossus of Rhodes. 

6. The Statue of Jupiter Olympus ; and, 
1. The Pharos of Alexandria. 

If seven were popularly selected from the works executed in 
our day, they would be : 

1. The Thames Tunnel. 

2. The Great Eastern Steamship. 

3. The Atlantic Cable. 

4. The Britannia and Niagara Bridges. 

5. The Erie Canal. 

6. The Modern Ordnance ; and, 
1. The Pacific Railway. 

If the engineer was called upon to name works in which the 
highest degree of professional skill has been exhibited, he would 
probably make some changes in this list. 

The Studies of a Modern Engineer. 

Probably few of the audience are aware of the hours of thought 
and study which are required of the engineer in the calculations 
and preparation of the plans for an important public work. 

For an illustration of this I will refer to the Britannia Bridge, 
built by the celebrated Engineer Robert Stephenson. 

Mr. Stephenson began his investigations as follows : 

There are but three kinds of bridges : 1. The arch, depending 
wholly upon the strength of the metal in compression ; 

2. The suspension, dependent wholly upon the tensile strength 
of its cables ; and 

3. The girder, in which some of its members are subjected to 
strains of compression, and some of them to tension. 

Bridges are often built combining two of these principles, but 
the difficulty of producing unity of action between them has led 
engineers to generally confine themselves to but one of them. 

Mr. Stephenson's first design was a bridge with arches of cast- 



43 

iron, of one* hundred and fifty feet span and fifty feet rise, with 
the center placed at an elevation of one hundred feet above the 
level of the sea channel, which they spanned. 

But the Admiralty, w T hich had the legal control over such struc- 
tures, declared that " no bridge should be erected which did not 
leave a clear headway of one hundred feet for the -whole width of 
the channel." 

The design of this bridge has been greatly admired, and many 
regrets have been expressed that the structure was not allowed 
to be built upon that plan. 

Mr. Stephenson's next design was a suspension bridge with a 
stiffened platform, but the difficulty of combining two such oppo- 
site principles in the same structure led him to dismiss the system 
of supension as a permanent support, and his next design was a 
girder, merely using suspension chains instead of scaffolding. 

Our own engineer, Roebling, the Pontifix Maximus of the day, 
has practically demonstrated that these two principles may be 
usefully, safely and economically combined, and has applied them 
to spans of more than twice those of the Britannia bridge, and is 
also prepared to undertake those of four times that span. 

Unprofessional persons will better understand the difficulty of 
constructing bridges of long span when it is stated that the strains 
increase with the length of the spans. That is, that a bridge of 
two hundred feet must be twice as strong as one of one hundred 
feet ; that the Niagara bridge is subjected to strains twice as 
great as those of the Britannia, and that the proposed bridge 
from New York to Brooklyn must be twice as strong as that at 
Niagara. 

Having determined upon the girder, Mr. Stephenson next pro- 
ceeded to consider its proportions. 

A green willow wand, if laid upon two supports, not too far 
apart, will show the bark with a smooth surface on all sides. 

Now, if a weight be suspended from the middle, the wand will 
be bent downward ; it will be noticed that the bark upon the 
upper side is wrinkled up, and on the lower side that it is 
stretched out. 

The first is the result of the compression of the fibres of the 
bark, and the second that of their tension. That is, al] of the 
fibres of the bark on the upper side are forced together, and those 
on the lower side are drawn out. 



44 

It will also be observed that about midway in the depth the 
bark remains smooth, not having been affected by either com- 
pression or tension. 

This is called the neutral axis, and this part of the stick is not 
subjected to any strain, except to hold the upper and lower parts 
together. 

If a hole is bored out of the middle of the stick, it will be 
found that so far from weakening, it has given it the power to 
sustain as much more weight as that removed. 

Reasoning in this manner, the engineer determined to make 
experiments to ascertain how much of the interior could be 
removed with advantage. 

His first trial was with a cylindrical hollow beam of wrought 
iron, heavily plated on the top and bottom, and as it yielded 
either at the top or bottom, he kept on strengthening that part. 

Meanwhile he had gradually changed the form of his tube from 
circular to elliptic, and finally to a rectangular shape, which his 
final experiments determined as the best form. 

He spent a year or more in these experiments, aided by Fair- 
bairn, one of the best mechanicians of the day, and Hodgkinson, 
a distinguished mathematician and scientist, by means of which, 
the best form and proportions of the different parts of the girder 
were determined from a model of forty feet length. 

Other experiments were made, to determine the strength of the 
riveting, of the lateral strength of the beam against gales of wind, 
of the strength of the stone and brick upon which the girders, etc., 
weighing eight thousand tons, were to rest, all of which experi- 
ments cost upward of fifty thousand dollars ; but they enabled 
the engineer to lay down his plans with great certainty, saving 
on the one hand any unnecessary weight of metal in any part of 
the tube, and on the other from the weakness of some part, which 
would have lessened the strength and value of the whole structure. 

Before a blow had been struck upon this work, the engineer 
had completed his plans so perfectly that he had even marked 
out the position and size of every rivet in the tubes. 

Many volumes have been written descriptive of this work, and 
they have been translated into the language of every civilized 
nation. 

It is true that the engineer would not now duplicate such a 
gilder, but a quarter of a century ago it was the boldest engineer- 
ing work of its kind. 



45 

A few years ago Prof. Airey, the astronomer royal, a member of 
the Institution of Civil Engineers of Great Britain, received the 
highest award of merit from that Society (the Telford gold medal) 
for an essay on a particular method of computing the strains upon 
the different members of a truss, but particularly of a most curious 
and interesting application of the changes in the musical tones 
which steel rods give forth, as they are more and more strained 
by the addition of weights suspended from them. 

A model truss was exhibited, all of its parts having been made 
from steel of a perfectly homogeneous character. 

Every piece or member of the model truss was made in dupli- 
cate, and the two were tested as to the correspondence of their 
intonation, when unloaded and when strained with different sus- 
pended weights. 

The model truss was then put together, and loaded with its 
anticipated weight. 

The duplicate piece of steel representing any particular mem- 
ber, w T as then suspended and gradually loaded until its resonance 
became the same as its corresponding member in the loaded 
truss. 

This added weight then accurately represented, first, the effect 
of the weight of the model itself upon that member, and next of 
the added load. 

Each member of the truss was in like manner tested by load- 
ing its duplicate. 

These musical experiments confirmed Prof. Airey's method of 
calculating the strains on the different parts of the model of the 
bridge truss which he exhibited during his address. 

Great Engineering Projects. 

I will close this address with a reference to some of the great 
engineering works which have been projected in our day. 

In a recent paper, emanating from a board of distinguished 
engineers, they say : " There is danger that, under the incentives 
of these wonderful achievements, the engineer may be led either 
to attempt impossibilities, or, what is more likely, to venture too 
far into an untried field of labor ; " and they add, " He (the 
engineer) would fail in his duty, and in a proper comprehension 
of his mission, if he allowed himself to project plans merely for 
his own personal eclat or aggrandizement, or if he did not confine 



46 

himself to the most safe, practicable and reasonable methods of 
accomplishing the results which are demanded of him." 

These conservative opinions, intended for the cautious capitalist, 
were doubtless those of a large portion of the members of that 
convention, but, among the engineers then present, were some 
who had themselves left the routine rules of the profession and 
demonstrated the possibility of plans which had previously been 
questioned. 

When we use the word " impossible," it as often indicates that 
our knowledge or reasoning faculties are insufficient to grasp the 
subject presented, as that the subject itself is in conflict with the 
laws of nature. 

Not very long ago it would have been hazardous to have advo- 
cated steam navigation, railway locomotion or electric telegraphy. 

When Dr. Lardner was lecturing against the possibility of a 
vessel being able to cross the Atlantic by steam, the Sirius and 
Great Western steamers were on their first voyage from England 
to America. 

While the most eminent engineers were building railways to 
be operated by horses and stationary engines, Stephenson pro- 
duced the Rocket locomotive, and while the w T orld was ridiculing 
Morse, the leaders of the Presidential Convention at Baltimore 
were conversing with the candidates in Washington through the 
telegraphic wires. 

Among the great projects of the age are those for building 
canals, railways, bridges, tunnels and steamers. 

It would be both presumptuous and hazardous to designate 
w T hich of these projects are practical and which are chimerical, 
but those of each class which are most feasible I will name in 
order. 

In canal work, we have a project for one around the falls of 
Niagara ; again, an enlarged canal between the interior lakes and 
the Hudson, suitable for vessels of a thousand tons ; the Suez 
canal (a rebuild of the one made by Necho, 610 B. C.) ; a canal 
across the Alleghanies, between the navigable waters of the Ohio 
and James rivers ; a canal through the Nicaragua lakes, or across 
the Isthmus of Darien, and one from Lake Huron to Ontario. 

In railways, we have the Pacific, on the eve of completion, the 
Mount Cenis in rapid progress, the one across the South American 
continent, from Rio Janeiro, begun, and others of magnitude and 
numbers too numerous to mention which have been commenced. 



47 

Of bridges, we have those in progress across our great western 
rivers; one proposed over the East river at New York, of one 
thousand six hundred feet clear span ; two over the Hudson, above 
and below West Point, each of twelve hundred feet span ; another 
across the Straits of Messina, covering the Scilla and Charybdis, 
with clear spans of a thousand meters, or nearly two-thirds of a 
mile each, and with piers of seven hundred feet high, half below 
and half above water ; and finally, the modern " Pons Assinorum," 
a bridge project across the Straits of Dover, sixteen miles long, in 
clear spans of two miles, with piers of a thousand feet or more in 
depth. 

In tunnels, we have that of Mount Cenis, nine miles, and the 
Hoosac, of five miles in length, both in rapid progress ; one of 
wrought-iron tubes (a sub-aquean bridge) under the Thames, and 
another under the Chicago river, almost completed ; tunnels also 
proposed under the East and Hudson rivers at New York, under 
the G-anges at Calcutta, and under the Straits of Dover. 

Conclusion. 

After the annual dinner of the Smeatonian Society in London, 
two years ago, this subject (the tunnel under the Straits of Dover) 
was discussed, and the chairman called for my opinion, remarking 
that my countrymen were noted for projecting (and accomplishing, 
he added) some of the boldest engineering schemes. He said : 

" Do you regard the tunneling of the Channel a feasible project ?" 

It being a post-prandial discussion, I felt at liberty to reply as 
follows : 

" Our late President of the United States (Mr. Lincoln), as you 
know, had a happy faculty of expressing his opinion by an illus- 
trative story, and with such high national authority, I will adopt 
the same method of answering your question." 

During the Peninsular war, an officer of Wellington's army, on 
his march to attack a strong fortress in Spain, was met by a 
brother officer, who naturally inquired the object of the movement. 

' What,' said he, 'to capture (so and so) ? Why, man, it is 
impossible.' 

' Impossible ? ' repeated his friend, ' not at all, for I have the 
Duke's order in my pocket.' " 

And so with the modern engineer. With the Banker's order 
in his pocket, he considers almost nothing as impossible. 



APPENDIX A. 

(Referred to on page 16.) 



The Length of the Railways of the World. 

Country. Year. Miles. 
North America. 

United States 1873 60,178 

Canada 1873 2,928 

Mexico 1870 300 

Honduras 1873 144 

63,550 

South America. 

Chili 1873 452 

Argentine Republic 1873 875 

Uragua 1873 57 

Peru 1873 375 

Paraguay 1873 44 

Brazil 1873 410 

Columbia 1873 65 

2,278 

Europe. 

Great Britain 1873 15,814 

Germany 1873 13,066 

France 1871 10,333 

Austria (etc.) 1873 7,529 

Russia 1873 7,297 

Italy 1871 3,895 

Spain 1870 3,801 

Sweden and Norway 1873 1,049 

Belgium 1873 1,892 

Netherlands 1873 1,045 

Switzerland 1871 820 

Denmark 1873 530 

Turkey 1873 488 

4 



50 



Country: Year. Miles. 
Eueope. 

Roumania , 1871 507 

Portugal 1869 453 

I 68,519 

India (Brit.) 1870 4,182 

Egypt 1870 737 

Cape of Good Hope 1873 134 

Australia 1870 1,058 

6,111 

Railways total miles 149,458 



APPENDIX B. 

(Referred to on page 19.) 



Dimensions 


of various Canals. 










NAMES. 


05 

s 

to 

s 


f 

to 
55 t? 


© 

o 


5«* 

e 

Si 


Locks. 


I 


to 
to 


•** 


■to 

to 


to 

if 

•ft* 

ft? 


1 


Canadian. 
Eachine 


8* 

HI 
11* 

3 

4 

4 

n 


120 

120 

150 

90 

90 

90 


80 
80 
100 
50 
50 
50 


1848 
1845 
1843 
1S47 


5 
9 

7 
1 
2 
3 


200 

200 
200 
200 
200 
200 


45 
45 
55 
45 
45 
45 


16& 9. 
9 
9 
9 
9 
9 


45 
82 
48 
4 
12 
16 


•• 


Beauharnois 




2 

3 

Welland 


27| 
133 
12 

30 


70 
80 
60 

150 

200 
40 
70 
4-4 
75 
66 

125 
70 
40 
60 


40 
60 
36 

100 

150 
28 
52 
26 
54 
42 

100 
52 
28 
42 


1846 
1832 
1843 
began 
1873 

i825 
1862 


27 

27 

59 

9 

25 

2 

338 

72 

107 

18 

4 

2 


150 
134 
118 

270 

350 
90 
110 
100 
220 
220 
220 

ioo 


26*. 

33 

23 

45 

70 
15 
18 
15 
24 
24 
40 

15 


10, 1 
5 

7 

12 

12 

4 
7 
6 
7 
8 
7 
6 
4 
6 


207 

330 
356 

330 

19 
2 
6 
9 
1 

6 
1 


177 

316 

55 

50 
16 

916 

20 


Ridean Route 




Welland Enlarged 


United States. 
Sault St. Marie 


New York Canals 


513 

352 

108 

43 

14 

14 

191 

147 

102 


Erie Enlarged 


Delaware and Chesapeake. . . . 
Albemarle and Chesapeake. . . 
Chesapeake and Ohio 


Kanawha 


Illinois and Michigan 





The Suez Canal was completed Nov. 15, 1869. It is 120 miles long, 330 
feet wide at the water line, and has 26| feet depth of water. There is a tide 
lock at each end, 330 feet long and 70 feet wide. 



51 

The Imperial Canal of China, built in the seventh century, is 720 miles 
long 1 , with five or six feet depth of water, except in the dry season, when it 
is only three feet deep. 

The Ganges Canal was commenced in 1848 and completed in 1854, at a cost 
of seven millions of dollars. It is 170 feet wide at the surface, with ten feet 
depth of water. 

The main line, including the river improvements, is 525 miles long, and 
including its branches, 900 miles long, and irrigates a million and a half of 
acres. 

The Amsterdam Canal, 51 miles long, with 135 feet width of surface and 
21 feet depth of water, cost four and a quarter millions of dollars. 

The whole Length of all the Canals in the World, is as follows : 

In the United States and Canada 5,410 miles. 

In Europe , 12,552 miles. 

In Asia and Egypt 6,420 miles. 

24,382 miles. 
The above statement was copied from Col. Conkling's report. 

APPENDIX C. 

(Referred to on page 20.) 



Dimensions of some large Bridges. 
Britannia Bridge, Menai, Great Britain, iron tubular, spans 460 feet. 
Victoria Bridge, Montreal, iron tubular, spans 330 feet. 
Severn Bridge, Great Britain, cast iron arch, spans 200 feet, rise 20 feet. 
Chestnut Street, Philadelphia, cast iron arch, span 185 feet, rise 20 feet. 
Susquehanna Bridge, Maryland, wood and iron truss, span 300 feet, 30 
feet wide. 

Missouri Bridge, St. Charles, truss, span 325 feet. 

Steubenville Bridge, Ohio, truss, span 320 feet. 

Fryburg Bridge, Switzerland, suspension, span 889 feet. 

Niagara Bridge, New York and Canada, suspension, span 821 feet. 

Wheeling Bridge, Virginia, suspension, span 1010 feet. 

Niagara Falls Bridge, New York and Canada, suspension, span 1256 feet. 

Brooklyn and New York Bridge,* suspension, span 1600 feet. 

APPENDIX D. 

(Referred to on pages 19 and 28.) 



Extracts from Wm. J. McAlpine's Report to the Legislature of New 

York, for 1852, 

ON TRANSPORTATION. 

"An investigation of the comparative advantages of the several channels 
of communication between the sea-board and the interior requires an exanii- 

* In process of construction. 



52 



nation into the cost and charges of transport by the various modes of land 
and water conveyance." 

" The charges cannot be relied upon in this investigation because they 
fluctuate on the various routes, and on the different articles conveyed ; com- 
petition reducing them to a minimum and monopoly raising- them to a maxi- 
mum." 

" The cost, however, furnishes a more reliable basis for comparison, as 
the elements upon which it depends are usually affected alike on the different 
routes." 

"These elements consist of loading, conveying, discharging, warehousing, 
insurance, and in artificial channels, the necessary expenses of maintenance 
and cost of construction." 

* * * " The cost of movement on a canal depends upon the relative 
sectional areas of the boat and of the canal, upon the actual size of the 
two, and upon the elevation (or depression) to be overcome. The cost of 
movement upon a railroad depends upon' the elevation to be overcome, the 
rate of its gradient, the curvature, and the limited capacity in comparison 
with the cost." 

* # # " j n arriving at the general results (the actual cost of transport 
by each mode of conveyance, applied to the several lengths of each on the 
channels of trade between the interior and the sea-coast), it will not be 
necessary to regard fluctuations of trade and commerce tending to increase 
or diminish the cost of transport which are of only a temporary character." 

"The following table shows the distances by sailing vessels, and the ordi- 
nary charges from American ports to England, etc. * * * The cost may 
be assumed at two-thirds of these charges." . 



Table of Charges. 



1851. 
FROM. 


To Liverpool. 


To Havana. 


To Rio Janeiro. 


CO 

s 


Per Ton. 


so 

1 


Per Ton. 


OB 

1 


Per Ton. 


Voyage. 


Pr Mile. 


Voyage. 


Pr Mile. 


Voyage. 


PrMile. 


Dolls. 


Mills. 


Dolls. 


Mills. 


Dolls. 


Mills. 


New York. . . 
Philadelphia, 
Baltimore — 
Richmond . . 
New Orleans, 


2910 
3020 
3150 
3295 
3530 
3395 
4755 


$11 00 

5 25 
5 00 
5 50 

5 75 

6 00 

7 50 


3.75 
1.74 

1.60 
1.70 
1.60 
1.70 
1.60 


1960 
1480 
1250 
1220 
1215 
1170 
595 


$4 00 

3 00 

4 00 

5 00 
5 50 
4 00 


2.70 
2.40 
3.27 
4.11 

4.70 
6.72 


6010 
5310 
5240 
5000 
5000 
5000 
6555 






$4 00 

4 00 

5 00 

6 00 

6 00 

7 00 


0.75 
0.76 
1.00 
1.20 
1.20 
1.06 
1 



Table of the cost of Transport per ton per mile from Win. J. Mc Alpine's 

report for 1852. 

Ocean, long voyayes (3,000 miles and more) 1 mill. 

" short voyage (2 mills for 1,000 to 1,500 miles) 

from 2 to 4 " 



53 

Interior Lakes, long: voyage, 1,000 miles and more. . 2 mill. 

" short voyage, 500 miles and less.... 3 to 4 " 

Rivers, similar to the Hudson 2\ " 

" similar to the St. Lawrence and Mississippi. 3 " 

" tributaries 5 to 10 " 

Canals, Erie enlarged 4 " 

" other large canals, but shorter 5 to 6 " 

" of the ordinary size 5 " 

" " " with great lockage 6 to 8 " 

Railroads, transporting coal (and other fixed busi- 

" ness) 6 to 10 " 

" for the usual traffic with favorable grades, 12| " 

" with steep grades, irregular traffic, etc. . . 15 to 25| " 

"These rates, when applied to the several routes and conveyances, must 
be increased to pay for maintenance and interest. On the Erie canal this 
was assumed at one dollar a ton." 

The increase in the 'value of labor and materials required in transporta- 
tion and in the value of money, between 1852 and 1873, has been from one- 
fourth to one-third, but is in exactly the same ratio as given by the above 
table. 

A statement given to me in May, 1873, by one of the largest shipping 
houses in New York, for the average fair charges by sail from New York to 
Liverpool, was $6.25 per ton for grain, beef, pork, etc., and returning §3.75 
per ton, chiefly iron. The charge by steam is one-third greater. 

The distance is 3,442 statute miles, making the present average charge 
nearly 1 1 mills per ton per mile by sail, and 2 mills by steam. 

The charges by sail to Valparaiso (12,000 statute miles) is §11 out and §20 
returning, equal to lg mills per ton per mile. 

The charges by sail to San Francisco, around Cape Horn (16,000 statute 
miles), is on coal §10 per ton of 2,240 pounds, and general freight §12, equal 
to | of a mill per ton per mile on coal, and | on other freight. 

The charge by steam from New York, via Panama to San Francisco (6,100 
statute miles), is about the same as by sail around Cape Horn, equal to 3 of 
a mill per ton per mile on goods, freight delivered in 30 days. The time by 
Cape Horn is from 100 to 120 days. 

The charge by railway from New York to San Francisco, 3,400 miles, on 
general freight, is from §60 to §150 per ton, equal to from 18 to 45 mills per 
ton per mile. 

The charge from Montreal to Liverpool averaged §6 per ten by sail, and 
§8 by steam, equal to 1^ and 2^ mills per ton per mile. 

The charges for grain, etc., by sail on the Lakes in 1873, were 5 mills per 
ton per mile, and by steam 6 mills; and by Erie Canal 6 mills. At the same 
time the charges by railway from Chicago to New York were 10 mills in the 
summer and 14 in the winter. 



54 



The average charges by railway from Chicago to Buffalo for the whole 
season, and for all classes of freight, were 2.43 cents per ton per mile in 1868, 
2.34 cents in 1869, 1.5 cents in 1870, 1.39 cents in 1871, and 13.7 mills per ton 
per mile in 1872. 



APPENDIX E. 

(Referred to on page 28.) 



Hon. Samuel B. Ruggles in 1869 prepared with great care a table of the 
cereals annually produced by each country of Europe and by the United 
States. 

The following is an abstract : 



COUNTRY. 



Russia 

Germany 

France 

Austria and Hungary 

Great Britain 

Sweden, Norway, Low Countries 

Italy, Spanish Peninsula 

Danubian Provinces and Turkey 

Total of Europe 

United States in 1868 



Population 



63,883,867 
38,768,291 
38,954,782 
35,444,876 
30,380,787 
18,813,625 

63,877,665 



296,123,293 
39,000,000 



Total pro- 
duct, Imp. 
Bushels. 



1,484,437,500 
664,411,100 
717,215,996 
571,254,765 
380,887,930 
244,517,511 

691,791,799 



4,754,516,604 
1,405,449,653 



Ratio of 
business to 
population. 



21.2 
17.1 
18.3 
16.1 
12.5 
13. 

10.9 



16. 
36, 



The cereal crop of the whole of the United States in 1871 was fifteen hun- 
dred millions of bushels, or nearly forty millions of tons. 

The ten western and northwestern States produced in that year more than 
a thousand millions of bushels, or twenty -five millions of tons, valued at 
home at five hundred millions of dollars. 

The tables from which this estimate is derived, show that the value of the 
grain lessens rapidly as the farms are more remote from the navigable 
waters. Corn is valued at 25 to 29 cents in Iowa and Nebraska, and 59 
cents per bushel in Michigan, and wheat is valued at 90 cents in the former 
and 132 cents in the latter. 

While the whole producing West is deeply interested in cheapening the 
cost of transportation between the main water lines and the " cereal frontier ; ' 
sections, where the demands of new emigrants and railway constructors have 
ceased, it has become a question of commercial life or death to secure nol 



55 



only cheap transport to the great water lines, bat also the cheapest through 
lines. 1 .' 

The neat cattle, for slaughter, within these ten States, amount to five mil- 
lions annually, and the swine and sheep to thrice that number, aggregating 
three and a half millions of tons, more than one-fourth of which reach the 
Atlantic markets, chiefly that of New York. 

In 1872 there were nearly five million hogs slaughtered and packed for 
export from the "West, amounting to five hundred and fifty thousand tons. 

The cereals shipped from the "Western Lake ports amounts to one hundred 
and fifty millions of bushels, and by railway, probably, fifty millions more. 

The cereals received at the lower end of Lake Erie by lake is, probably, 
eighty-five millions bushels, and by railways forty-five millions. The ship- 
ments by the Erie Canal are fifty millions bushels, and probably half that 
quantity by the Central and Erie Railways. 

The amount of cereals received at the Atlantic cities is one hundred and 
sixty millions of bushels, and that exported to foreign countries, chiefly from 
New York to Great Britain, is one hundred millions of bushels. 



Receipts and Shipments by Water and Railway, showing the 
proportion of each at various places. 



Phi add $ ^ a ^ ai> ticles by the four railways. . 
° ( " " lake* 


Tons 
Receipts. 


Tons 
Shipments. 


1,430,726 
2,965,402 


2,077,055 
1,847,240 


Totals 


4,396.128 

800,000 

almost none 

90,000 

356,000 


3,924,295 

almost none 
800,000 
23,000 
368,000 


Milwaukee \ 0f & T and *™ ^ ™£™ J - ' 

Montreal j 0f fl ™ r and ^ ain h ? r ^W v . . . 
1 " " canal and river, 

Totals 


446,000 


391,000 i 





*This lake tonnage (4,812,642 tons), would require twenty -five thousand 
cars and six hundred locomotives to haul it from Chicago to Buffalo, based 
upon the actual work done by the cars and engines in 1872, provided it could 
be hauled regularly throughout the year; this would be impracticable, and 
therefore it would require three times as many locomotives and five times as 
many cars as the Lake Shore Railway now uses to perform the lake business 
between Chicago and Buffalo, and these numbers must again be increased 
one-half to provide for the business from the other lake ports. 



56 



Analysis of the Business of the Trunk Railivays for 1872. 





New York 
Central. 


Erie. 


Pennsyl- 
vania. 


Baltimore 
and Ohio. 


Lake 
Shore. 


Length of trunk line, 


442 

63 
447 
230* 
10,983 

7,911,257 

1,020,908,885 
4,293,965 


459 

109 

488 
250* 
10,638 

3,004,051 

950,708,902 

5,564,274 

893,685 

369,196 

1,262,881 

220 

105 1 

170t 


358 
42 


379 

39 
383 
311 
8,251$ 

7,121,795$ 

910,855,695 
4,000,000* 

750,000* 

300,000 

1,050,000 


540 

84 
418 
250* 
8,637 

600,000,000* 

4,382,243 


Cost in millions of dol- 


Number of locomotives 
" applied to freight 
" of freight cars. . 

Mileage of the freight 
trains 




10,000* 


Mileage of the freight, 
Tons of freight carried, 
Through freight East, 


1,187,107,000 

7,844,778* 

879,461 

412,385 

1,291,846 


Through freight West, 






Through freight in 

both directions, tons, 

Average load per train 

Average load per train 

calculated, tons. . .. 
Av'ge distance freight 

was moved, miles. . . 
Average distance of 

way freight, miles. . . 
Average rate charged 

per ton per mile, cts. 
Mileage of engines per 


2,250,133 
250 

127t 
230t 










130* 
208 


152t 


1501 


1.67 
34,000 


1.52 

36,000 


1.42 




1.37 
33,000 
17,000 


30,000 


Mileage of cars per 















* Estimated, t Calculated. X Including 3,669,071 tons of coal, and excluding 614,757 
tons of fuel for Company's use. § Includes mileage of 72 passenger engines. 



APPENDIX F. 



(Referred to on page 28.) 



Abstract of Replies. 

To questions of the Canal Commissioners of Canada, by Boards of Trade 
and Forwarders in 1871, giving- the results of the best opinions thereon : 

1. To provide for the most suitable navigation through the lakes to tide 
water, the locks of the Welland Canal should be enlarged to a length of 
two hundred and fifty to three hundred feet, a width of thirty-five to forty 
feet, and a depth of water of fourteen feet. 

2. The Boards of Trade of the Upper Lakes recommends vessels of one 
thousand to one thousand five hundred tons as the best adapted to cany 
produce from Chicago, etc., to ports on Lake Ontario with the greatest 
economy. Several persons recommend vessels of not exceeding eight hun- 
dred tons. 

Steam propellers are found almost as economical as sail vassels, regard 
being had to the greater number of trips which they can make. 



57 



12. Taking- into the account time, insurance and interest as elements of 
cost, steam vessels (propellers) cannot carry freight on this route as cheaply 
as sail vessels. 

Yet both are necessary to meet the strong- competition of the short line 
railways. 

F. G. Holcomb, of Toronto, states that the theory of practical men is, 
"that a vessel, to be profitable, should have at least one ton of cargo 
capacity for each mile of the route it is designed for." 

The larger the vessels within the above limit the less will be the propor- 
tionate cost. " For instance, the only difference in a vessel of ten thousand 
or twenty thousand bushels will be one or two additional men." 

Transport by steam costs less, if there is quick dispatcli ; (that is, in load- 
ing, unloading, lockage, etc.) 

13. What is the cost and daily working expenses of sailing and steam 
vessels of five hundred and one thousand tons capacity ? 

In Dollars. 



AUTHORITY. 


Cost of sailing Vessels. 


Cost of Steam Vessels. 


500 Tons. 


1000 Tons. 


500 Tons. 


1000 Tons. 


Vessels. 

Daily 
Expense. 


Vessels. 


Daily 

Expense. 


Vessels. 

Daily 
Expense. 


Vessels. 


Daily 

Expense. 


Board of Trade. 

Chicago 

Detroit 


30,000 
25,000 
25,000 
25,000 


40 
50 
25 
60 


40,000 
40,000 
45,000 


48 
70 
35 


50,000 130 
50,000 100 
45,000 100 
45,000 120 


80,000 
80,000 
75,000 


190 
125 
120 




60,000 


100 


75,000 


160 



17. The general opinion of the Montreal merchants and forwarders is that 
the produce from the Western States can be transported the cheapest in 
large vessels to the east end of Lake Ontario, and thence to Montreal by 
transfer (of grain) into barges. 

Mr. Stuart, of Detroit, says: " There is no kind of transportation that can 
compare with that by barges." 

The gentlemen of Chicago and other places West, and some of those of 
Oswego, agree in the above opinions. 

Others assert that when the Welland Canal is enlarged to convey vessels 
of one thousand to one thousand five hundred tons, it will be much cheaper 
to convey the cargo directly to the side of the sea-going vessel. 

19. " Vessels adapted for the ocean are too heavy, too costly, and in many 
other respects wholly unfit for economically navigating the Interior Lakes." 

"They are too heavy in frame, masts and rigging, and too difficult to 



58 

move and control in the rapids, and in entering- and passing through the 
canals." 

All of the correspondents agree that it would be inadvisable to have the 
same craft navigate the lakes and the ocean. 

The Board of Trade of Toronto says: "Iron is now received from the 
ocean ships in Quebec, and laid down in Chicago for three dollars and fifty 
cents per gross ton by water even with our present imperfect facilities," 
(less than two and one-half mills per ton per mile). " It is well understood 
that the cost of haulage on a railway for the same distance is at least ten 
dollars per ton, and therefore it is impossible for the rail to compete success- 
fully with water." 

30. Interrogatory : "It takes from twenty to thirty minutes to pass the 
locks of the Welland Canal, and twenty hours for steam and thirty hours for 
sail vessels to go throug'h the whole canal." 



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